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I know no one will probably agree, but the appearance of caring might be important. Also, shit in the major leagues, especially for a team with a market that big, is not on the same geologic timescale that the Royals and Pirates are on. It can change fast enough for Bourn's signing to not be a waste.

I know no one will probably agree, but the appearance of caring might be important. Also, #### in the major leagues, especially for a team with a market that big, is not on the same geologic timescale that the Royals and Pirates are on. It can change fast enough for Bourn's signing to not be a waste.

I generally agree. I don't care so much about appearances, but I do think it's generally a good idea to acquire reasonably valued assets that will help your team win. To the point raised in #5, signing Bourn would reduce the amount of crazy #### that would have to happen for the Mets to contend. If you can make a few moves like that, all of the sudden, you're a contender.

I generally agree. I don't care so much about appearances, but I do think it's generally a good idea to acquire reasonably valued assets that will help your team win. To the point raised in #5, signing Bourn would reduce the amount of crazy #### that would have to happen for the Mets to contend. If you can make a few moves like that, all of the sudden, you're a contender.

Not to mention it's a great deal for Cleveland. They're paying for him to average 2 WAR over the contract.

Dammit, Walt had me convinced that signing Bourn would have been a good move.

PECOTA says 80-82.

That sounds high to me, and I generally tend toward optimism in February. The infield actually isn't bad, but that OF is horrendous. Didn't the Cubs just DFA Campana to make room for Hairston)? Even that might be an upgrade over what's on hand.

I don't think it is unreasonable for the Mets to think that they could compete soon. They'll be freeing up some money when Santana and Bay's contracts are over. They have some nice pieces and have some very intriguing young pitching. More importantly, they weren't horrible last year. I don't think it would have been odd to try to add a good outfielder this year even when they don't think they can make the playoffs this year.

That's a reasonable deal for the Indians and I would have been happy had the Mets made that deal. How about someone like Grady Sizemore?

I'm excited about the steps forward Flores took last year-- I don't know what the scouts said about his gains, but he's finally showing some real power. He's in the F-Mart boat, in that he has been in the system for so long it's easy to forget he'll only be 21 this year.

I generally agree. I don't care so much about appearances, but I do think it's generally a good idea to acquire reasonably valued assets that will help your team win. To the point raised in #5, signing Bourn would reduce the amount of crazy #### that would have to happen for the Mets to contend. If you can make a few moves like that, all of the sudden, you're a contender.

Problem is, the Mets can't make a few moves like that. No money, no talent it makes sense to trade. They're also in exactly the wrong place to sign a guy whose trajectory is likely to be 4-3-2-1 wins. Adding a guy like Bourn in the 2014-15 offseason will probably make a lot more sense.

Apparently, the Mets matched the 4y/48m part of the contract but did not add the vesting option. That's why they didn't get him.
Silly. I can see not wanting to lose the #11 pick, but $12M 5 years from now?

You're assuming the Mets ever intended to sign Bourn.

edit: why would you not? Anyway, it's not a rapid decline for a good, not great player. It's hard to last into your mid30s in baseball as a regular. Those guys are the exceptions. It's not insult when it's assumed that you won't last past 34 or so. 3.5-4 win players don't typically have nice gentle declines stretching from age 30 to 37.

edit: why would you not? Anyway, it's not a rapid decline for a good, not great player. It's hard to last into your mid30s in baseball as a regular. Those guys are the exceptions. It's not insult when it's assumed that you won't last past 34 or so. 3.5-4 win players don't typically have nice gentle declines stretching from age 30 to 37.

He averaged almost 5 WAR from 26-29. At this price you're asking him to generate 10 WAR through age 34.

It would require a total collapse for him to be not worth the contract, and then you're out of the deal after 4 years, b/c you bench him and the option doesn't vest.

I thought the Mets had been told that they wouldn't lose their pick. If that's not true, yeah, I am OK with them not giving up that pick to the Braves, who would have drafted the second coming of Willie Mays.

Rotoworld said that they offered him 4y/48m so it looks like they made him a legit offer.

Who do the Mets have in the mix right now in the OF? Marlon Byrd, Duda, Baxter, Nieuwenhuis, and Cowgill? Is that it? That's going to be awful.

As I wrote, that he's going to not be very good by the time the Mets have a shot at it is why.

Of course, if the only difference between signing and not signing is that the Wilpons keep the money, by all means get him. Still, in that scenario, I would have kept Dickey and used the difference between Bourn and Dickey to fill in starting in 2015.

edit: you seem to be under the impression that the Mets are like other, saner baseball teams. I've taken over the last couple of years to see them instead as practitioners of a kind of performance art, meaning I want to be entertained. Dickey was by far the most entertaining Met, so I would have kept him. Waiting for the Mets to win under the Wilpons is like engaging in eternal foreplay. You keep searching for ways to be tittilated, but there won't be a climax.

I'm seriously asking this: can you name a worse outfield than what the Mets are going to subject us to? I don't mean now, I mean in your entire life of following baseball. I really can't. I Baseball Referenced every first year expansion team and couldn't find one worse. In 50 years of following the Mets I can honestly say I have less enthusiasm for them than I ever had. When bringing in Marlon Byrd, Corey Patterson and Pedro Feliciano are supposed to get me psyched?

Well, if he's almost certain to be worth the deal, and might be a good bit better than that, and they have no OF, why wouldn't they sign him?

Bourn could be worth 4/48 and still not be a good idea as a signing. If the thinking is that this team has no chance to contend this year or next, all signing Bourn accomplishes is getting the team a worse draft pick the next couple years, then when the team is ready to contend, it's entirely possible they're stuck with an untradeable fourth outfielder who makes $12 million and impedes improvement elsewhere on the roster.

I don't agree with the thinking, as I think this team is closer to contention than the anti-Bourn crowd feels, but it's understandable.

In 50 years of following the Mets I can honestly say I have less enthusiasm for them than I ever had. When bringing in Marlon Byrd, Corey Patterson and Pedro Feliciano are supposed to get me psyched?

They have their best run of prospects since the Reyes/Wright/Kazmir/Milledge days, that's something worth watching for.

To answer your question, last year's Astros began the year with Schafer, Martinez and Bogusevic in the outfield. They were all below replacement level last year. That's pretty bad, and of the three Martinez is the only one that looked like he might have underperformed - Schafer and Bogusevic were known to be garbage. Their 4th outfielder Justin Maxwell had a very nice year and eventually won a starting job. So, yeah, they might still be better than the Mets.

It looks like they tried to sign him and failed. Not a big conspiracy or anything. It does mean that they're stuck with what's on-hand. If you squint enough, you can see Kirk and Duda being OK. What I don't understand is the decision to not snag Hairston, unless at that point they thought they had a legit shot at Bourn. But even then, what was the fear? Afraid of having 2 full outfielders between the 5 on the roster?

When bringing in Marlon Byrd, Corey Patterson and Pedro Feliciano are supposed to get me psyched?

You left difference-makers LaTroy Hawkins and Brandon Lyon off of your list.

I've taken over the last couple of years to see them instead as practitioners of a kind of performance art, meaning I want to be entertained. Dickey was by far the most entertaining Met, so I would have kept him.

Strongly agree with this. And if Alderson concluded the same and began focusing primarily on fun or wacky players, I would support that.

Problem is, the Mets can't make a few moves like that. No money, no talent it makes sense to trade. They're also in exactly the wrong place to sign a guy whose trajectory is likely to be 4-3-2-1 wins. Adding a guy like Bourn in the 2014-15 offseason will probably make a lot more sense.

I would agree with you if this were a contract that was likely to significantly hamstring the Mets on the back end. But, even if Bourn were just a 1 WAR player in the last year, that's only $7 mil in deficient value (assuming $5 mil/WAR, which is probably low), and Bourn would still be worth the contract at 4-3-2-1 (which is a very pessimistic assumption). This signing would make the Mets better and they would be acquiring an asset that looks to be undervalued at the moment. Those kinds of moves are good moves any time. Maybe Bourn would have helped the Mets accomplish the unexpected or maybe they would have traded him for prospects or maybe he would have just made the Mets a bit more fun to watch. I'd like any of those things.

The other thing is, you can't expect to become a contender all at once. And the market for professional baseball players isn't terribly liquid. Sometimes you have to make a move when a good move is available rather than waiting until the perfect time to make a move - the right move might not be there for the making at the perfect time. So you pick up 5 or so 2014 wins with Bourn now, and maybe a few more with trades in season, and maybe a bunch more this offseason after Santana and Bay come of the books (mostly). But if you don't get the 5 now with Bourn, you have a bigger hill to climb and you still have to find a CF.

And Kotsay was traded midseason, which meant that utility infielder Omar Infante and pinch-hitter Greg Norton also saw a decent amount of time in the outfield.

Edit: To correct myself, Kotsay wasn't traded until late August, and all of Norton's outfield starts came before then. From then on, it was Anderson in CF, with a mixture of Blanco, Infante, and Brandon Jones (I did not at all remember him getting 27 starts that year) in LF.

I was trying to find the Jays worst OF, but since Barfield and Moseby teamed up in 1982 they've always had strong outfields.

George Bell, Devon White, Joe Carter, Shawn Green, Shannon Stewart, Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Jose Bautista. They've always had at least one guy in the outfield, usually two, who was probably a top 25 OF at the time.

You would think the 1997 Phils OF of Gregg Jeffries, Midre Cummings and 35 yo Darren Daulton would rank down there with the worst but Cummings put up a 110 ERA+ and Daulton a 124, albeit in 234 and 333 PAs. Jeffries clocked in with an 89. That left Tony Barron (96) and Ruben Amaro, Jr. (68) with 200 or more PAs and still left 100+ PAs for Wendell Magee (36), Derrick May (47) and Ricky Otero (74). Even "Free" Billy McMillon (105) got 81 PAs.

What they lacked in quality suck they more than made up for in quality suck.

The 1988 Mariners started the season with an OF rotation of Mickey Brantley (90 OPS+, -0.3 dWAR), Henry Cotto (86, -0.2), Glenn Wilson (75, -0.6), and Mike Kingery (64, -0.2). Brantley had been good in 1987, but the rest were known to suck. Wilson at least had an entertaining arm, I guess.

The Mariners called up Jay Buhner in May, traded Wilson for the mercurial Darnell Coles in July, and called up Griffey in '89. So things turned around pretty quickly.

The '98 Devil Rays had a pretty bad OF rotation for the first half of the season: Mike Kelly, Quentin McCracken, Randy Winn, Dave Martinez, and Paul Sorrento. This is before Winn was any good. Bubba Trammell came up to stay in July and hit well.

The '97 Royals OF Was Bip Roberts (90 OPS+), Tom Goodwin (71), a young Jermaine Dye (69), a young Johnny Damon (88), and Yamil Benitez (88).

The 2005 Giants outfield looked pretty bad in spring training, when Barry Bonds was forced to sit out nearly the whole season and they were left with Pedro Feliz in LF every day, "prospects" Todd Linden and Jason Ellison, and the assembled corpses of Marquis Grissom and Michael Tucker.

However they also had Moises Alou, who put up another great season at age 38, and they eventually traded for Randy Winn.

I'm seriously asking this: can you name a worse outfield than what the Mets are going to subject us to? I don't mean now, I mean in your entire life of following baseball.

The 1985 Pirates were pretty bad. Left-to-right on opening day, you had Doug Froebel (.189/.301/.258) filling in for an injured Steve Kemp (.250/.317/.347 in his last season as a regular), the worst season of Marvell Wynne's not-particularly-distinguished career (.205/.247/.258), and a could-not-possibly-give-less-of-a-#### George Hendrick (.230/.278/.313).

That said, the reserves (rookie Joe Orsulak, Mike Brown, Sixto Lezcano, and Bill Almon) ended up being at least half-decent, so it wasn't a complete and total wash once the starters played their way out of the lineup.

was trying to find the Jays worst OF, but since Barfield and Moseby teamed up in 1982 they've always had strong outfields.

1978 Jays - Bob Bailor (82 OPS+), Rick Bosetti (81), Al Woods (79). Otto Velez was very good off the bench though. That was the same outfield in 1979 with pretty much the same results and Velez being good again off the bench.

How bout them 2011 Mariners? Ichiro (86), Carlos Peguero (76), Franklin Gutierrez (54), with reserves Michael Saunders (23) and Trayvon Robinson (67). Mike Carp (125) also played 27 games in LF and Milton Bradley and Casper Wells were decent in very limited action.

You guys did find some bad OFs! I still think this one is worse, but I'll let that go and comment on something that may actually be good news. With Francisco out, Parnell has been given the closer job. I think he turned a corner in the second half of 2012 and will do an excellent job.